Chloé / Spring 2012 RTW

Search a show by:

They ripped off the roof to let the air in at Chloé. It was so unbearably hot in the show tent at the Tuileries that Clare Waight Keller’s debut was practically held in the open air, which was weird for early October, but a happy turn of events to showcase the designer’s breezy summer collection—all flyaway pleats and healthy, bouncing, blown-out hair. The dresses, left to flow free from the shoulder or caught in wide, hip-slung belts, had a sense of an uncontrived no-fuss modernity which alluded to something of the season’s emerging drop-waisted twenties flapper silhouette, but without any sense of “vintage.” “I want it to be classically feminine, with a lot of fluidity and movement,” Waight Keller said, “but also very real.”

The stewardship of Chloé has passed through the hands of so many young British women in the past decade, it’s hard to keep up. In 2001, there was Stella McCartney, followed by Phoebe Philo, and Hannah MacGibbon. All three of them went to Central Saint Martins, and all worked together at one time or another at Chloé. Clare Waight Keller differs in that she’s a graduate of London’s Royal College of Art, worked at Gucci under Tom Ford, and was hired away from her latest post at Pringle of Scotland. She’s a young mother of three (the youngest born early this year) and moved to Paris to take the top spot at Chloé in mid-August. The bio is relevant because it puts Waight Keller in the same demographic “sweet spot” as her predecessors—a thirtysomething professional woman who needs to bring a sense of intuition to the job: that crucial Chloé lifestyle knack for clothes and accessories her peers will identify with.

Judging by what she’s achieved with this speedy entry, her head and taste could be in the right space for recapturing the elusive sense of Chloé “It”-ness. Her use of pleats (in the beginning, over-printed with stripes of color) was well-judged and technically innovative, if perhaps slightly overemphasized by the end. But within the collection, she also convincingly nailed two other essential Chloé signatures—the well-cut pants the house is known for, and an interpretation of broderie anglaise that looked great. An outstanding look among these was the short-sleeved white lace top and skirt which captured the pristine-but-practical young and modern Frenchness that’s been a central part of the brand’s attraction since its beginnings in the sixties. The task here—to build an entire and compelling system of dressing that will attract the loyalty of her peers—will take time, but Waight Keller has made a promising start.